Party Photo Shoot, Part II

[KevinCollins]

I'm starting a new thread because this one will be about the results of the party shoot. Get comfortable, this one is going to be long...

Last night was the night. I had gathered the following as my arsenal to take to the shoot:

Body: Canon Rebel XSi
Lenses: Canon EF 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM and EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM and my kit lens.
Flash: Canon 430EX II
8GB SD Card, 4GB SD card, 4 fully charged batteries for the camera and 10 AA batteries for the flash.

All in all I felt pretty well set. (BTW There is nothing better in this world than good friends. Both lenses and the flash were borrowed from a friend.)

I arrived nearly an hour early, got my equipment ready and began to walk around, taking a few test shots. It's a good thing too, because the planned seating and placement of things changed from the previous night's walkthrough.

I went in to the shoot with the following in mind: It's low light, I need set the ISO high and keep the apeture wide open. I'll use the flash for fill light, bouncing it off of the ceiling. Which is exactly what I did.

At the end of the evening, I had taken 155 pictures. When I got home, I was tired, my left arm was sore from holding the 70-200 and camera, and my back was killing me from standing on the tile and concrete floor of the condo complex. I didn't have the mind to start the post processing so I went to bed.

Woke up this morning, grabbed the camera, downloaded the pictures and began to examine the results.

I have to tell you that I began to get worried as the amount of pictures that I simply rejected because of camera shake and movement began to accumulate. When all was said and done, I had rejected 75 of them.

Of the 80 that remained, several of them still had slight blurs of motion. But many were really good, crip and clear shots.

I post-processed those 80, adjusting sharpness, color, etc., created a JPEG version of them, burned them to CD and delivered them to my client. The client kept praising me and commenting on how well they had turned out.

But I'm still not happy with the results....I'm going to post three photos, the first is one that I simply rejected, the second is the "before" of a keeper and the third is the result of the post-processing.


EXIF Data:
Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 40 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash On, Fired





EXIF Data:
Camera Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi
Exposure 0.1 sec (1/10)
Aperture f/2.8
Focal Length 52 mm
ISO Speed 400
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash On, Fired


Continued....

[KevinCollins]

The reason I'm not happy is because I felt that the flash would have allowed me to compensate for the low light allowing me to increase the shutter speed and eliminate the shake. As you can see even in the third image, the lady in middle was moving ever so slightly and is blurry.

So I went into the local camera shop, showed a few photos and asked what I had done wrong. First words of the guys mouth were "your shutter speed is too slow". To which I replied, "I know, but how could I have corrected it?" His suggestion was to shoot in program mode ("P" mode or semi-automatic, not the fully automatic modes).

What? Really? Turn my dSLR, which I bought to get OUT of automatic modes, back into a point and shoot? There was nothing I could have done with the flash to help that? Why buy the flash then?

I mean seriously, is that really the only way to control the camera and flash to get good low-light photos? How do wedding photographers take pictures of moving subjects using only speedlights? How are they capable of getting great results, I can't believe that they are using program mode.

I understand this was my first low-light gig, but help to learn here. Seeing the pictures, the EXIF data, what else could I have done? Is "P" mode really the best solution?

[candleman]

dont use Program.. he's an idiot.

your problem is the low ISO.. ISO 400 is very low for a gloomy room.
I'd have gone straight to 800 or 1600

going from 400 to 1600 means your shutterspeed can go from 1/40th to 1/120th and get the same amount of light in.

I'll re-read this later and compose a better response. but thats the first thing that jumped at me.

Exposure bias and Flash Exposure Compensation are independant..
you're shooting Manual mode right?

it IS ok to under expose tha ambient a bit it its a small room, and the flash will fill it to the right exposure.

[candleman]

shoot in manual mode

adjust the FLASH exposure compensation as necesary.. so dial in a positive number if you're under exposing the ambient and want to use the flash as the "Key light" so to speak.
if you're only using a lick of flash for fill (bad call on a Low ISO camera) then you need to boost the ISO enough to get a higher shutterspeed,

on a 70-200 (no VR) you probably wont get away wth less than 1/40th

what i do.
Matrix (Pattern) metering if using flash as fill
Spot if using Flash as main light

big difference in how the flash reacts and in terms of the FEC you need to dial in to get the same picture.

planet neil

TONS of stuff in here.. check out the links down the side
dragging the shutter
metering
exposure compensation

[KevinCollins]

Originally Posted by candleman

shoot in manual mode

planet neil

TONS of stuff in here.. check out the links down the side
dragging the shutter
metering
exposure compensation

Thank you candleman. I'll be reading the information for some time to come. Probably see a book purchase in my future too.